When women support the status quo: Gender moderates the relationship between openness to experience and system-justifying beliefs

Although epistemic needs motivate the endorsement of system-justifying beliefs, few studies have investigated moderators of this association. Here, we argue that because being the target of discrimination should undermine one’s sense of control, the association between epistemic needs and system-justifying beliefs should be stronger for disadvantaged (vs. advantaged) groups. As hypothesized, analyses of a nation-wide random sample of adults ( N = 14,929) revealed that the negative relationship between openness to experience (i.e., an indicator of low epistemic needs) and multiple system-justifying beliefs (i.e., gender-based system justification, right-wing political preference, and conservative party support) was stronger for women (vs. men), and that these moderated associations were mediated by perceptions of gender discrimination. Our results suggest that women may sometimes endorse beliefs that conflict with their self and group interests in order to satisfy their epistemic needs.

The Influence of the Disadvantaged Mindset on System-Justifying Beliefs

System justification theory holds that disadvantaged groups rationalize the current social system, even if it is unfavorable to them. Epistemic, relational, and existential needs are factors that explain this phenomenon. However, the literature has not yet examined and explained when disadvantaged groups no longer rationalize current social systems. This study uses a questionnaire survey method (N = 745) to study the moderating effect of collectivism on disadvantaged mindset and system-justifying beliefs. It found that collectivism can influence the predictive effect of disadvantaged mindset on system-justifying beliefs. For people who scored low in collectivism, a disadvantaged mindset can significantly negatively predict system-justifying beliefs; for those who scored high in collectivism, a disadvantaged mindset no longer predicts system-justifying beliefs. Therefore, these results show that collectivist values are important for explaining system justification in disadvantaged groups. When collectivist values decline, the level of rationalization of the social system by disadvantaged groups also decreases.

Examining the relational underpinnings and consequences of system-justifying beliefs: Explaining the palliative effects of system justification

People often perceive social systems as fair and legitimate in order to satisfy existential, epistemic, and relational needs. Although much work has examined the existential and epistemic roots to system justification, the relational motives underlying the tendency to justify the system have received comparatively less attention. We addressed this oversight by examining the associations approach and avoidance relational goals have with system justification in a national probability sample (N = 21,938). Consistent with the thesis that the need to belong motivates system justification, avoidance goals (i.e., the desire to avoid social conflict) correlated positively with system justification (approach goals also unexpectedly correlated positively with system justification). Also as hypothesized, system justification mediated the relationship between avoidance goals and belongingness. Moreover, system justification mediated the relationship between avoidance goals and belongingness. Finally, sequential mediation analyses revealed that avoidance goals predicted higher well-being via system justification and belongingness. This study is the first to demonstrate that system justification confers palliative benefits by satisfying two different relational goals.

Ideological asymmetries in conformity, desire for shared reality, and the spread of misinformation

Ideological belief systems arise from epistemic, existential, and relational motives to reduce uncertainty, threat, and social discord. According to system justification theory, however, some ideologies-such as those that are conservative, religious, and legitimizing of the status quo-are especially appealing to people whose epistemic, existential, and relational motives are chronically or temporarily heightened. In this article, we focus on relational motivation, describing evidence that conservatives are more likely than liberals to: prioritize values of conformity and tradition; possess a strong desire to share reality with like-minded others; perceive within-group consensus when making political and non-political judgments; be influenced by implicit relational cues and sources who are perceived as similar to them; and maintain homogenous social networks and favor an 'echo chamber' environment that is conducive to the spread of misinformation.

Representation and Incorporation of Close Others’ Responses

We propose a new model of social influence, which can occur spontaneously and in the absence of typically assumed motives. We assume that perceivers routinely construct representations of other people’s experiences and responses (beliefs, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors), when observing others’ responses or simulating the responses of unobserved others. Like representations made accessible by priming, these representations may then influence the process that generates perceivers’ own responses, without intention or awareness, especially when there is a strong social connection to the other. We describe evidence for the basic properties and important moderators of this process, which distinguish it from other mechanisms such as informational, normative, or social identity influence. The model offers new perspectives on the role of others’ values in producing cultural differences, the persistence and power of stereotypes, the adaptive reasons for being influenced by others’ responses, and the impact of others’ views about the self.

When Bad Emotions Seem Better

Evaluations of objects change as a function of our experience with them. We suggest that this also applies to the evaluation of emotions. In three studies, we show that the evaluation of anger changes as a function of direct experience with anger. We found that the experience of anger in a context in which it could be beneficial (i.e., an aggressive computer game) led people to perceive anger as more useful (Study 1). Moreover, people came to evaluate anger less negatively after experiencing anger in a context in which it could be beneficial. These changes did not result from the mere experience of anger or from exposure to an aggressive context (Study 2). Rather, the more anger improved their performance, the less negatively participants came to evaluate anger (Study 3). These findings suggest that how bad anger seems may depend on our direct experience with it.

Bolstering system-justifying beliefs in response to social exclusion

Integrating research on social exclusion with the broader literature on system justification and flexible responses to threats, we propose a novel coping strategy that individuals may use in the face of social exclusion. In particular, we suggest that because exclusion often feels unexpected, it will lead individuals to bolster the system-justifying worldview that people get what they deserve, as excluded individuals attempt to cognitively cope with the threatened order and predictability of their world. Supporting our prediction, in Study 1, social exclusion (vs. inclusion) led participants to increasingly endorse descriptive meritocratic beliefs suggesting that hard work leads to success in society. This effect was mediated by the perceived unexpectedness of the interaction outcome, providing key evidence for our hypothesized process. Study 2 used individual differences in rejection sensitivity to provide further support for our unexpectedness account, demonstrating that exclusion heightens meritocratic beliefs only insofar as participants tend to find exclusions unexpected. The results expand our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms by which people cope with social exclusion and highlight the malleability of system-justifying ideologies in response to interpersonal factors.

What's so insidious about "Peace, Love, and Understanding"? A system justification perspective

We agree that promoting intergroup harmony "carries insidious, often unacknowledged, 'system-justifying' consequences" (sect. 4.1.3, para. 2) and identify several ways in which “benevolent” and “complementary” stereotypes, superordinate identification, intergroup contact, and prejudice reduction techniques can undermine social change motivation by reinforcing system-justifying beliefs. This may "keep the peace," but it also prevents individuals and groups from tackling serious social problems, including inequality and oppression.

Beyond prejudice: Relational inequality, collective action, and social change revisited

This response clarifies, qualifies, and develops our critique of the limits of intergroup liking as a means of challenging intergroup inequality. It does not dispute that dominant groups may espouse negative attitudes towards subordinate groups. Nor does it dispute that prejudice reduction can be an effective way of tackling resulting forms of intergroup hostility. What it does dispute is the assumption that getting dominant group members and subordinate group members to like each other more is the best way of improving intergroup relations that are characterized by relatively stable, institutionally embedded, relations of inequality. In other words, the main target of our critique is the model of change that underlies prejudice reduction interventions and the mainstream concept of “prejudice” on which they are based.